As the wagon wheel rolls

Rivalry Game

Forty-one years later, the series resumed and a coach named Don Carthel came up with an idea to pour fuel on the fire. Not only should a game between universities just over 100 miles apart be exciting, there should be some sort of prize.

Carthel, who coached the Greyhounds from 1985-91, found a battered wagon wheel on a ranch south of Portales, N.M. He had it repaired by a blacksmith. A plaque on the wheel is engraved each year with the latest score.

"This game means a lot to Eastern New Mexico, and to WT, also," Carthel said. "It's for braggin' rights."

The idea was that student leaders would participate in a wheel exchange if the previous year's winner was defeated. But try to stop an entire football team from storming up a hill and taking the wheel.

"This is the best rivalry game in Division II. There's not a better one," said ENMU coach Mark Ribaudo, who has been part of 15 Wagon Wheel games.

The idea initially backfired on Carthel. WT won the first three Wagon Wheel games by a combined score of 113-25. ENMU's first win didn't come until 1989, but fast-forwarding to 2007, the Greyhounds have taken an 11-9 lead in the series.

There have been some dramatic games. WT rallied from a 34-13 deficit, early in the fourth quarter in the 1993 game to win 35-34. Ribaudo was special teams coach at WT that season.

WT won again by a 35-34 score in 1997, this time blocking the Greyhounds' extra-point kick after an overtime touchdown, then scoring its own TD and booting the deciding PAT.

ENMU won four straight games from 1999-2002 and had won five of six before WT won arguably the most exciting game in the series in 2005.

ENMU was 4-2 and WT 6-0 when the teams squared off in Canyon before almost 23,000 fans. The Greyhounds let a 45-31 second-half lead slip away and the Buffs won, 52-51, in overtime.

Carthel's teams have won four of seven Wagon Wheel games in which he has participated, two at each school.

Ribaudo has been part of the series since 1992, the past 10 seasons at ENMU.

"This is when we come alive. You wait 364 days in the year for this game," he said. "It doesn't matter if you're 10-0 or 0-10, this is always a great game."